The invention relates to safety control systems for vehicle safety mechanisms, typically for use in passenger vehicles or light trucks. The invention however is also applicable to other vehicles such as cargo haulers, spacecraft, trains, construction equipment, forklifts or military vehicles.
Increasing inclusion of sophisticated safety mechanisms is the trend in vehicle design, particularly for passenger vehicles and light trucks. Many new mechanisms, such as those described in co-pending applications Ser. Nos. 10/807,325, 10/877,176, and 10/916,564, by common inventors of this invention, as well as existing safety devices, such as airbags and pretensioned safety belts, increase the protection of vehicle occupants in the event of an accident. However, protection can often be further enhanced if several of these mechanisms are used together. It would also be advantageous to deploy safety mechanisms in a fashion that took into account the configuration of the vehicle at the time an accident occurred. Configuration includes the physical layout of the vehicle as well as the location, size, weight, and possibly age and sex of the occupants. For instance a seat reclining safety mechanism for a front seat could potentially have a greater recline angle for the case where no passenger was sitting immediately behind. However, if the front seat were moved forward before reclining, a higher recline angle might be achievable without contacting a backseat passenger. This is one example of improving protection by deploying two mechanisms, recline and longitudinal positioning, in concert, with knowledge of occupant locations and size as well as vehicle structure. As multiple safety mechanisms are simultaneously deployed, it becomes increasingly important that the time phasing and magnitude of deployment be determined with knowledge of the passenger compartment configuration. To date, the extent of knowledge of the passenger compartment configuration actually used in safety deployment is to factor in occupant weight and position to modify the firing characteristics of airbags. It has also been proposed to move seats back in response to a signal from a proximity sensor indicating an imminent collision. These devices fall well short in addressing the issue of optimized deployment of multiple safety mechanisms for particular passenger compartment configurations. It is one object of this invention to provide a novel solution to this issue.
Furthermore, many safety mechanisms rely on systems, that when deployed, may require more electrical power than is typically available in the passenger compartment of the vehicle. A safety mechanism requiring that a motor, which reclines a seat, operate much faster during a rollover accident than during normal operator seat positioning, is an example of a situation where increased electrical power must be available. Although the main battery/alternator power system common in vehicles is capable of delivering a large amount of power in the engine compartment(ie starter motor operation), typically the power distribution system in the passenger compartment and other parts of the vehicle is routed through a current limiting device, such as a fuse box. Thus the wiring system past the fuse box is typically limited to 30 amperes of current or less. However, the emergency deployment of safety systems may, at least for short durations, require significantly more power than can be accommodated by conventional power distribution systems. Thus it is a further object of the invention to provide a solution for the emergency power requirements of vehicle safety mechanisms.